What kinda fool are you?

I don't know about you, but the book of Proverbs can be a bit depressing for me.

I know all my faults, ok-no elbowing me!, most of my faults...there may be a few lurking that I haven't acknowledged yet...but I don't always know how to DO better. I tried for years to fix me on my own-to quit smoking, to be nicer, to become more graceful, to have neater penmanship (ok, that one I have done). Fixing me just isn't that easy.

Pastor George described 3 types of fools found in Proverbs-
  • Simple one: basically a gullible follower whose life choices depend on the crowd he hangs with
  • Garden-variety Fool: closed-minded, self-centered person
  • Mocker: scornful, prideful jerk

GULP! Which one am I?

What I appreciated is that he also pointed out people don't plan to set out on a journey to be a fool. How many times has a friend approached you for advice on how to become a more self-centered jerk? I have never had that experience, either.

But what I have experienced is the challenge of trying to outgrow some self-centeredness. This is where we started: how difficult it is to change.

Just when I was about to give up in frustration and self loathing and find a church that could tell me the secret of change, we were let in on the answer...it's the Gospel.

God has been caring for us goofballs since Adam and Eve first realized they were naked. He saw their need and lovingly clothed them. He has pursued us thru the ages, spoken thru prophets and sacrifices, and ultimately showed up in his most lavish example of love, Jesus. When we hear Him, when we turn away from all the junk that we thought made us safe and secure and happy, when we release that junk to go to Him, something changes in us. He changes us.

Now, I know my life is different today than B.C. (Yes, I meant Before Christ.), altho some things are still challenging. Or maybe it is just that I am still growing, still changing. I hope so. Sounds like a mission statement...

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Blog Carnival: Community

Image
Blog Carnival: Community Community is getting to be a buzzword that hardly seems recognizable.  It has become permanently connected with a metrosexual worship leader at the hip church which has an outreach into some impoverished place.  But is that community? Yesterday I wrote about Facebook's social networking site.  Did you know that there are more than 300 million active users and that 50% of their active users (returned to the site in the last 30 days) log on to Facebook in any given day and that the average user has 130 friends on the site? Is that community? Do we really have a community or do we talk so much about it and request friends by the busload because we desire it intensely? We were made for community.  Creator said it was not good for that first man to be alone.  Even Creator was not alone.  We need to walk with others.  We need our village.  We need them to not only walk with us a...
Read more

He's Calling

Image
I didn't sleep well last night. I kept waking up, wanting to write. Those nights are annoying, particularly when I am working 12 hours the next day so I have no business getting out of bed to write. But here is the thing that kept bugging me...what if God is calling us not to greatness, but to smallness? Yeah, weird thing to keep a person awake, huh? Our group that went to the Leadership Summit are praying for ways that we can put what we learned into practice. Look around your neighborhood-there is so much need. Look around your coworkers-enough need to depress you. Look around the world-so much need it can paralyze. And then I think about this thing with callings... What if it isn't about being called to a thing, but to be like Him? What if it doesn't matter where I am or what I do but how I do it? What if His only desire is for me to respond to this broken world as He does? Right where I am? Jesus stopped to love the kids, he held up important people to talk to a woman, ...
Read more

The Reason for the Season

Image
This post is participating in today's blog carnival on the word LOVE.  To read other posts, click here . As all my friends texted holiday wishes this Christmas, one stood out.  This one seemed to go against all the "Keep Christ in Christmas" and "Jesus is the reason for the season" bumper stickers.  This text said simply, U r the reason 4 the season. At first I thought she wrote it incorrectly, so I read it again looking for the typo.  But, there wasn't one. That's when it hit me: without me, there wouldn't be a need for Christmas. Ok, so that sounds somewhat egocentric, but hang in there with me.  God is this crazy amazing being made of love.  It is out of that crazy, amazing love that he chose to step into flesh, to show us that God does love us and that he didn't abandon us to the evil that surrounds us, to bring us back to this relationship.  God, the first and greatest lover, pursues us, rescues us.  O...
Read more